Malala and Sandra

Charlotte Hays

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for advocating education for women, is struggling for her life. Ross Kaminsky captures the magnitude of her courage:

I intend no hyperbole by suggesting that this sort of bravery is rarely seen anywhere, at any time. It is of the same character as our Founding Fathers who signed a Declaration of Independence which concluded "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." They did this knowing that they were likely -- as they were taking on the mightiest military power ever known -- to lose the first two, along with the lives of those they loved most.

It’s almost a desecration to include Sandra Fluke in the same post as Malala, but I’m going to quote Kaminsky’s comparison because it’s so instructive:

The courage of these girls, and now of the many Pakistanis publicly supporting them, in their efforts to ensure true fundamental freedom, stands in stark contrast to today's American liberal and feminist activists.

I was struck by the pettiness, the sense of entitlement, of whiney liberals when, on the same day that I read the interview with Shazia, I saw an ad released by the Obama campaign complaining that Mitt Romney opposes federal funding of Planned Parenthood and that he threatens "access to birth control." The female narrator says, "He'll cut it off…he'll cut us off." (I can't help but wonder if there's a subtle John Wayne Bobbitt image intended in the first half of that statement; the anger of the narrator seems positively Lorena-like.)

Similarly, Democrat activist Cecile Richards, in her role as the president of Planned Parenthood's political operation, said at the Democratic National Convention that Republicans "want to end access to birth control." Obviously, this claim is false; indeed it is essentially impossible. Yet Sandra Fluke -- also invited to the DNC -- along with Richards is making a living on it. And Barack Obama is trying to keep his job with it.

This subject has been covered enough that we don't need to relitigate it here. Suffice it to say that what these leftists want -- and what they have largely gotten through Obamacare -- is not "access" to these things, but government funding for them which is to say that they want taxpayers to pay for their "reproductive services" whether that means medical tests, contraceptives, or abortions.

As someone who is pro-choice, I say this: What they want is not liberty. It is not equality. It is not justice. It is what Frédéric Bastiat in his seminal work, The Law, called "legalized plunder."

But the good news is that women seem to be wising up. The Obama campaign’s clarion call to plunder may not be working as well as they had hoped.

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Independent Women’s Forum’s mission is to improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty. Sister organization of Independent Women’s Voice.